


The Leaper

by CovalentBond



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Losers (2010), The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2015-12-05
Packaged: 2018-02-09 03:56:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1968039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CovalentBond/pseuds/CovalentBond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I can't keep doing this forever," Steve tells him. "Steven Rogers was declared KIA more than seventy years ago, his life is over."</p><p> </p><p>"What are you talking about, Captain." It wasn't a question.</p><p> </p><p>"I quit, I'm done," Steve says after a few seconds. "I can't keep doing this."</p><p>-----</p><p>Steve starts over as Jake Jensen to get away from all the attention and the constant pressure of being Captain America. You can take a soldier out of the battlefield, but the war never truly leaves him. </p><p>He joins the army once again, and ends up on a team with the Losers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title named after The Leaper by Deas Vail.
> 
> Listened to that song nonstop while writing this. 
> 
> If you want me to tag any warnings please feel free to tell me.

When Steve wakes up from the defrosting, after running through the city barefoot and confused, Director Fury kept him under house arrest in SHIELD headquarters. He's treated exceptionally well, but the nurses and agents are wary around him. They don't reveal any information then what he already learned from the weekly checkups from Fury.

  
Stark's son, Tony, visits him on the third day and there's hostility laced with his introduction. His smirk doesn't quite reach his eyes and his erratic movements are just a bit forced and calculated. Steve doesn't understand how Tony can be so narcissistic and egoistic and _so different_ from Howard. He makes the mistake of mentioning Howard, and Tony visibly flinches and shuts up. He leaves after a few more minutes of awkwardness and doesn't visit until Steve's recruited by Fury for the Avengers Initiative. Steve doesn't know how he feels about that.

  
The Avengers Initiative is the somewhat nonconsensual recruitment of a handful of dangerous people Steve's never heard of, plus Tony. Fury doesn't give them much of a choice other than join us or watch the world get conquered by aliens. The team meets Thor halfway through the mess, and after the whole ordeal Steve gains a little group of reluctant friends and a broken and mismatched team that makes him ache for the Howling Commandos. And Bucky. Bucky, who's dead and gone, and will never see the future with Steve.

  
\-----

 

The media goes crazy over them; interviews and talk show requests clog Ms. Pepper Potts' inbox, and tabloids and gossips are all that's on the front pages of magazines and newspapers. There are pictures and videos of their fight on the Internet, guesses and bets about the secret identities of the superheroes.

 

Steve didn't take off his mask, but the iconic costume was enough to make historians and the government freak out about the return of Captain America. Speculations and in depth analyzes of his jawline and nose surface around the web, and crazy rumors spread like wildfire. Fury wants him to reveal himself and help gain some good publicity for SHIELD. Steve politely declines.

  
Bruce moves in with Tony in the tower to have 24/7 access to his labs and equipment, Thor goes back to Asgard with his brother in tow, Clint and Natasha stay with SHIELD for further missions from Fury. No one talks about Agent Coulson. Steve buys a simple wooden box from an antique store with the savings in his account and puts the bloodied trading cards inside.

  
\-----

 

After two weeks of pestering from Tony and Ms. Potts and feeling claustrophobic and lonely in the new apartment that SHIELD got him on the edge of the city, Steve moves into the Tower.

  
He's got his own floor and unlimited access to the gym. He talks to Jarvis, orders random things online with the credit card Tony set up for him, and sometimes when he gets restless, he watches Bruce and Tony tinker in the lab, listening to them bickering and rambling.

  
Tony was pleasantly surprised when Steve asks him about the suit and the coding behind Jarvis. "I piloted a German plane on my own without any help," Steve tells him dryly. "I maybe old, but I'm not an idiot."

  
And with that, Bruce and Tony teach him about computers and modern technology every other day in the privacy of the lab. Steve's memory's always been exceptionally good, he WAS an artist after all, and the serum enhanced it to the point where Tony calls it 'eidetic'.

 

With the help of two geniuses, Steve learns about computers and coding at an alarming rate. In a few short months, he can take apart and build from scratch a computer, hook up tracking devices with a few office supplies and wires, he can hack into a ton of major security systems and disable any firewalls and decrypt the codes. Even Tony was impressed.

 

\-----

  
On a Tuesday morning, Fury calls them all in for another 'defend the world' mission. This time, it was a bunch of terrorists attacking the city, and once again the five of them and Thor came together and eliminated the threat. Then they were paraded in front of cameras and microphones and screaming reporters who swarm around them with questions here and there. Not for the first time, Steve feels like a show monkey; dressed in red, white and blue tights, face hidden under the mask, looking like the poster boy for American patriotism.

 

He pulls Fury aside after yet another debriefing with the team on how to avoid giving away classified details and dodging tricky questions from stubborn reporters.

 

"I can't keep doing this forever," Steve tells him. "Steven Rogers was declared KIA more than seventy years ago, his life is over."

 

"What are you talking about, Captain." It wasn't a question.

  
"I quit, I'm done," Steve says after a few seconds. "I can't keep doing this."

  
Fury closes his eyes and sighs, fingers digging at his temple.

  
"No one can confirm that you're the original Captain America," Fury says. "People are saying it's an imposter. We'll diffuse that rumor, pull some strings, but you must run anything you want to do by me."

  
Steve nods sincerely. "Thank you." He turns to leave, but turns back and gives the Director a salute. "You have my gratitude."

 

\-----

 

Within a month, he gets a new identity, the reluctant approval of his teammates, and a new life. He leaves his shield and uniform with Tony, and gives his permission to use them when the team sees fit.

 

Steve cuts his hair to a buzz cut, gels the top with Clint and Natasha's help, and packs a bunch of T-shirts given to him by Tony and Clint as gag gifts. Bruce gives him one of his old pair of glasses with the prescription lenses knocked out and replaced with glass. Pepper takes care of the legal procedures and runs him through his new identity.

 

Jacob Jensen is a 21 year old with no family other than an older sister, Virginia Jensen who lives in New York, and a high school diploma with a GED of 4.3. Steve agreed to list Pepper as his sister on the grounds that she won't alert the team of his whereabouts unless he tells her to. He knows Tony would be keeping tabs on him with Jarvis, but he trusts him not to interfere.

 

With that, he leaves the Tower in a bright yellow sweater, dark jeans, a pair of well-worn converses and squinting into the sun with his new glasses.

\-----


	2. Chapter 2

It took him two months, eight awkward introductions and an unsuspecting Starbucks barista to get him used to his new name.   
  
Walking out of the coffee shop with a green tea frappe and 'Stee-Jay' crudely sharpied on the side, Jacob Jensen was made.   
  
The small apartment he rented from an old senile lady was cramped and drafty on windy days, but Jacob doesn't have asthma or bad lungs, and he can't get colds from walking on the floor barefoot anymore.   
  
His neighbors are nice, but quiet. He buys canvases, brushes and colors from the art store down the block, and paints the sceneries from his window. But there's only so much you can paint with one window facing the back of a greasy Italian restaurant and the other in the bathroom. He's tried setting the easel on top of the toilet seat, but after an attempt to pee in the middle of the night while half asleep turned out being a lot more difficult than he expected, he sighed and moved the setup back in the living room.   
  
\-----  
  
When the three months lease ends, Jacob's faced with the daunting reality that this is not the life he wants, not even close. It's too quiet, too calm, and the desperate attempts to keep his voice down when the nightmares come at night to prevent another noise complain is getting to him. He's made no new friends and his landlady just barely tolerates him.   
  
His misses Tony and Bruce's rants, Pepper's nagging when he forgets to eat, Clint and Natasha's games of hide and seek that usually result in more collateral damage than necessary, he even misses Thor's loud booming voice and the trail of Pop-tart wrappers that he leaves behind.   
  
Sometimes, in the wee hours of the morning, when he just can't sleep, he thinks about his old team, Peggy, Howard, his ma, Mrs. Barnes, and Bucky. He thinks about going on his computer and hacking a few databases and looking for his team's grandchildren, because he's read a few biographies and memorials about the Howling Commandos. He knows Bucky was the only one besides him that didn't make it through the war. He knows Dum Dum named his twin sons James and Steven, and Peggy got married but never had any kids. He knows Mrs. Barnes received condolence letters for both him and Bucky, and had passed away from poor health the following year.   
  
Steve wants so badly to dig up the old files and reconnect, but he's not Steve anymore, at least not until the nightmares hit and the sound of Bucky screaming as he falls becomes the only thing that matters.   
  
\-----  
  
The morning of the last day, he turns in the key, packs the few belongings he has in a box and drives away in his crappy old car.   
  
He leaves a painting of the skyline view from the roof of the building on the table; one last gift to the landlady for putting up with his bullshit. He doesn't sign his name.   
  
He calls and reserves a room for a hotel. On his way there he stops for gas and meets an army recruiter. Jacob Jensen never showed up to claim his room that night.   
  
\-----  
  
The army is not like what it was in the old days. The training's stricter, the weapons are more advanced and the rules are more enforced than ever. But the people's still the same: cocky, full of shit and tough.   
  
It’s the third week into Basics and he's been I.D.ed more than ten times. But it's the first time a commanding officer mistakes him for a kid visiting his big brother that became the last straw. He's gonna to grow a damned beard.   
  
His attempt at growing a full and manly beard is mediocre at best, and he ends up looking like a scraggly gorilla than a man. He doesn't know what prompted him to style the pathetic frays of hair into a goatee, but it ends up looking better than anything else he's tried so far. He decides to keep it.   
  
Somewhere across town, Tony wakes up gasping from a nightmare where his beautiful goatee was set on fire by a toaster. He leaves a message for Pepper to insure his beard for twenty thousand dollars and goes back to sleep.   
  
\-----  
  
Jacob manages to piss off almost every single person he runs into, either with his charming personality or with his uncannily high IQ he's not sure, but he's pretty sure it's one of them. Or maybe it's the Avengers T-shirts that he wears every day.    
  
By the end of Basics training, the only two people that haven't decked him in the face is a mechanic named Pooch and a small Mexican named Cougar.   
  
He searches their names up on the military files, Linwood Porteous and Carlos Alvarez, it says, and he hacks into their library accounts and pays off their overdue books. Pooch had five dollars of overdue fines from over two years ago, and Cougar still hasn't returned his Star Trek DVD.   
  
Pooch offers him the occasional greeting, and Cougar just doesn't give a shit about him, which is better than getting punched or sneered at.   
  
They call him 'Jensen', and sometimes 'JJ' when they run out of insults. Steve Rogers wants to come out and teach them a lesson on respect and bullying. Jensen smiles and ruins their credit history.   
  
\-----  
  
Pooch gets recruited into a platoon and he's shipping out in two weeks, Cougar gets chosen for some special sniper training. They both leave without saying goodbye and Jensen tries to not feel bad about it. It's not like they were his friends or anything.    
  
Jensen gets recognized as a pretty good hacker and decent code breaker, paired with his almost perfect training scores he gets thrown into Special Forces training almost instantly.   
  
They lend him off to a shit load of different units and give him just as many tests and evals. He hacks into the system and fucks up the records so he doesn't have to test his eyesight and his blood. He may be Jacob Jensen, but his metabolism and rate of healing says otherwise.   
  
\-----  
  
Fury calls him a few days after he enlisted.   
  
"Are you serious," Fury says when Jensen picks up the phone. "I risked my ass to get you away from the fighting and the minute I turn around you decide to join the fucking army?"   
  
"Nick," Jensen sighs over the phone. "It's not the fighting that I'm want to get away from, it's the fact that I'm a glorified boy scout that's supposed to be dead. I became Captain America to help my country, but became a show monkey instead. This time, I'm gonna do it right."   
  
"Just, for fucks sake, don't do something noble and heroic like blocking bullets with your chest or some shit."   
  
"Yes, sir." He nods solemnly.   
  
\-----  
  
Apparently Tony called in a few favors with James Rhodes, a good friend of his, and got in contact with the higher ups about an aspiring young soldier named Jacob Jensen who's got more talent than any other field experienced soldier. Ever.   
  
Jensen doesn't know the specifics, but he's called down to Colonel Franklin Clay's office a few days later and offered a spot on the new Spec Ops team. His second in command is a scary looking man named William Roque. Jensen hesitates for a full two seconds before signing the papers and demanding a fist bump.   
  
\-----  
  
It turns out, Pooch is their mechanic and transpo., and remembers him from Basics. Jensen was happy enough to pull him into a hug.   
  
Jensen knows, with a team this small and experienced, there will be just as many illegal missions as there will be legal. And it's only a matter of time before Fury develops an aneurysm. So he orders an edible arrangement of fruits and chocolate for his office and convinces Bruce to knit him a pink eye patch. 

The team can’t work without a sniper, so they go on small missions with trial snipers, and so far Roque's managed to scare the literal crap out of one, send another to the ER and lodge a pen into the thigh of the last one. 

 

Pooch tried to run over  the first one with his truck when the poor guy decided to insult his girlfriend, and Laura, Clay's bat shit insane ex, 'accidentally' stabbed the second one with a kitchen knife. The fifth one punched Jensen in the face and broke his glasses, and it took Clay and Pooch to pull Jensen off of him, because  _the son of a bitch broke Bruce's glasses._

 

Jolene, Pooch's wonderful girlfriend, gets her colleague's husband to fix the broken glasses, and earns herself a permanent spot on Jensen's disappointingly short list of friends. 

 

When Cougar shows up as their latest sniper replacement, Pooch high fives him and Jensen thinks,  _this is it, this is the team._

 

Clay is still overbearing and growls a lot, Roque still threatens to skin him alive if he doesn't shut the fuck up, Pooch hasn't warmed up to him and Cougar hardly even looks at him let alone talk. But Jensen knows, just like how Steve knew the Howling Commandos would become a legend, this is gonna be the best team ever. 

 

\-----


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a short chapter because i have one too many bucky feels

 

 

\-----

 

The first time a mission goes pear-shaped, Jensen ends up running for his life with his laptop in one hand and two USB sticks in the other. Clay's commands are ringing his ear, but he's with Roque, who's managed to injure his foot, and they're nowhere near Jensen. 

 

He makes it out of the warehouse and dashes into the parking lot, zig zagging through the cars with a hail of bullets raining on his heels. 

 

"Turn right! Circle around the portable and take cover until Pooch and I get there!" Clay yells into his left ear. 

 

"Roger that, sir!" He replies and ducks behind a truck. 

 

He squints through the blood and dirt on the glasses, trying to locate the portable. He curses, stumbles and drops his laptop when a stray bullet ricochets of the metal and nicks his thigh. 

 

A man with a machine gun comes from behind the truck he's leaning on and levels the gun at him. Suddenly, his head jerks back, explodes against the white truck and he slumps down, leaving a smear of brain matter and shattered skull. 

 

Jensen quickly picks up his laptop and sprints to the portable. 

 

"Thanks, Buck!" He shouts into the comms and throws a thumbs up. 

 

It isn't until they're all stuffed inside Pooch's bright yellow van with Roque's sprained ankle propped up on the dash that Clay brings it up. 

 

"Who's Buck?" 

 

Jensen freezes. Clay doesn't sound suspicious or angry, just curious. Cougar and Roque is now staring at him. Pooch tries to pretend he's not listening by leaning just a bit forward from his seat and flicking the little Pooch on the dash. 

 

When he doesn't answer right away, the stares turn scrutinizing and Jensen squirms in his seat. He can almost see the gears turning in their heads. He knows that they had suspected something fishy when he, the youngest member of the team --by far-- settled into the gruesome military life with little to no complains and a sense of familiarity. 

 

"My best friend." Jensen answers finally. 

 

"Is he in the army as well?" Pooch tilts his head to the side and looks back, giving up the pretense of not listening. 

 

"Yeah, he was." Jensen says. The past tense sits uncomfortably in his mouth, because it feels like it's only yesterday when they stood side by side, looking down at the snowy alps, filled with naive hope that they could take down Zola and win the war. 

 

"I'm sorry." Clay squeezes his shoulder. 

 

Jensen looks around at his team and lets out a small smile. There's no pity in their eyes, just sadness and loss, something with which they're all too familiar.

 

"Me too." Jensen's smile turns sad, and he feels something burning on the back of his eyes. It's the first time he's spoken about Bucky since his death. Not even Peggy could get him to talk. "You know, if it weren't for me, he wouldn't even be there in the first place." 

 

Cougar shifts his arm so that he's pressed against Jensen, Clay's hand drifts down and squeezes his elbow, not letting go. Jensen doesn't know if he could stop once he starts talking, but everyone is silent, expecting. 

 

"We grew up together you know, I knew him my whole life. I don't think I even remember a time when we weren't friends. We lived in the same apartment, and our mums knew each other. We were inseparable. There was no me without him." Jensen-no,  _Steve_ , smiles fondly. "I'd get myself into so much trouble, and every time he'd show up and save my scrawny ass. I was such a little shit, don't know why he stuck around." 

 

He clears his throat, but doesn't continue. For a few minutes, there's only the occasional thump and screech from the car. 

 

"What happened?" Roque asks softly, after a comfortable silence. 

 

"I fucked up," Jensen laughs bitterly. "And like always, he had to clean up my mess. One second he was there, and the next -- he's gone. Just like that." 

 

He wipes his eyes.  

 

"Didn't even get to say goodbye," his voice breaks off. "Never found the body either. Couldn't even get his tags." 

 

He leans against Cougar and finally allows himself to mourn his best friend for the first time in seventy years. 

 

The remainder of the car ride was silent, with the random radio static and gravel crunching. And the occasional sniffles and hiccups coming from Jensen. 

 

They don't talk about it, but they all feel something in their dynamic shift and change, sliding into place and locking. It's not like they didn't trust each other before, but there was always  _something_  hanging between them when they're not talking about a mission; the stillness of a not-quiet friendship that no one wanted to bring up. 

 

When Jensen falls asleep with his head against Cougar's shoulder and his hand clasped around Clay's wrist, Cougar looks down at the mob of dirty blond hair and smiles over at Clay. 

 

Clay winks back.  _We're gonna be okay_ , he thinks. 

 

\-----


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *sneaks in an update ten years later whoops sorry

It's been two years since Jensen's confession about Bucky and he's only slipped up once. That one time in Peru when Cougar took out two guys with one bullet, earning a 'holy shit bro' from Roque and a 'nice one, Buck' from Jensen. The radio was silent and tense for a moment, filled only with Jensen's ragged breathing, before the tension was broken by Clay's oddly calm voice, informing Cougar of his position.

\-----

They're in LA, staked out at a five-star hotel two blocks north of the casino where the owner is smuggling illegal drugs from across the border. Their order is to kill the two heads of the operation and leave without a trace.

Cougar and Clay is undercover, trying to get a better visual of the floor plan, Pooch is stationed across the street for backup and Roque is going over the files again with Jensen in the room, trying to track the trail of money from account to account.

The intel they've received is insufficient and short; Brian Miller is the head of the operation, his right hand is Scott Burns and they're disguising the ill earned drug money as lottery money, collecting them periodically every two months. In two days, they will be making a deposit which will then be won by a man named Horatio in a rigged game of poker. The money will then be transferred to a safe house in five different vehicles going three different routes.

All Jensen needs to do is hack into the security cameras, draw a map, and pinpoint the locations of key persons. Under Clay's suggestion, he also made three escape routes and two rendezvous points in case shit happens which-according to Clay-is going to happen. Meanwhile, Clay and Roque will put trackers on the getaway cars, and Pooch will follow them.

But something doesn't it sit right with Jensen. The intel didn't mention anything about who Horatio was; there was no picture, no last name, no description, only the amount of money that he will pick up. There was no solid proof that this even was a drug deal.

The team was also skeptical at first, but Clay really couldn't find anything wrong other than the lack of important intel, and they have gone into mission with less information and somehow fumbled their way through. Cougar had been tracking their every move for the last three days and can confirm that they are in fact having contact with at least seven other gangs.

With five hours left before Horatio is supposed to enter the casino, the team is on edge and a bit frustrated. Of all the training they've done, there was nothing about how to proceed when there are one to many unknown variables in play.

Jensen is idly tapping away on his laptop, contemplating on hacking to the military base to see if they were withholding information on them when a notification pops up.

_"You have (1) new mail from the University of Brooklyn."_

He clicks on it, looking over his shoulder to see if anyone is watching.

"'Thank you for applying to the University of Brooklyn!" it says. He scans the content for worms and viruses, and when it comes up clean he hesitantly opens it.

"Hi Sarah,

Thank you for your application to the Arts and Entertainment program at our university.

Your portfolio has been reviewed and considered. Unfortunately, it has been rejected as it did not meet the requirements of the rubric.

~~_CUSTOMERS WILL BE ARMED. THEY ARE SUSPICIOUS. H WILL NOT BE THERE TONIGHT. ABORT IMMEDIATELY._ ~~

Thank you for your understanding. If you have any questions or concerns please contact Eddard Winterfell via email or telephone."

"Jesus christ, man," Jensen murmurs to himself before yelling for Clay. "Hey! I've got something!"

Apparently, 'Clay' is code for 'everyone' because soon the whole team is crowded around his computer looking at the email.

"This has to be a joke," Pooch scoffs. "What kind of name is Eddard Winterfell?"

"No, someone is in on this as well," Clay says. "As far as I know, no one else had been briefed on this mission other than us."

"Well, someone must have," Roque reasons.

"And that someone is Ned Stark? Lord of Winterfell? Ruler of-"

"Wait, wait, wait, did you say Ned Stark?" Jensen whirls around in his wheelie chair. "Stark, as in stark naked?"

"Yeah man, the Starks of Winterfell. Whoever wrote this letter must have be a Thrones fan." Pooch sounds oddly intrigued.

"Oh, that son of a bitch," Jensen says fondly, to no one in particular. "How did he even-"

"Wait, you know this guy?" Roque says.

Jensen looks at him sheepishly, then turns to Clay.

"We'll discuss this later," Clay sighs. "Can we trust him and the information?"

"Yes, sir," Jensen says, then breaks into a smile. "Believe it or not, he taught me almost everything I know about computers and hacking. If anyone can get some good intel, it's him."

"So what now, boss?" Cougar says, eyes never leaving Jensen's face.

"We abort. Pack everything up and leave no evidence. We're getting the hell out of here."

\-----

They're two hours away in a black van when they get the news that there's been a shoot out at the casino after some drunk got into a fight and someone called the cops. The cops showed up and was gunned down by the guards, but not before they radioed for backup. The shooters had gotten away before backup came but none of the customers were hurt.

The car is silent after Pooch turns off the radio. Cougar is once again staring at Jensen, expression carefully blank.

Clay clears his throat and Jensen schools his smile victorious grin off his face.

"So, you wanna tell us why your friend decided to hack into a secure military network and send you an email, breaking every fucking rule in the book, and somehow ended up saving all of our asses?"

"It won't happen again, I promise," Jensen shrugs and ducks his head down to hide his grin.

"That's not the point, Jacob." Jensen's head snaps up at the mention of his first name. "Do you know how much legal and illegal shit we can get into if anyone finds out about this?"

"Clay, man," Roque sighs. "It did save our lives, and honestly, I was about to back out of this mission anyways. The intel was crap, and the motive didn't make sense. Something was off."

"We could have walked right into their ambush," Pooch reminded from the driver's seat. "And we didn't. And that's all what matters to me."

Clay sighs and runs his hand through his hair.

"Alright, alright, " he relents. "Send your friend a fruit basket or something. But don't let there be a second time."

Jensen gives him a thumbs up and smiles. "Will do, sir!" But his skin prickles under the intensity of Cougar's stare.

Jensen turns to face the window, letting his smile drop into a frown.

Cougar, whose scrutinizing stare hasn't left Jensen's face since they got in the van, shifts slightly in his seat.

\-----


End file.
